The Queens of Crime

Chapter Twenty-Two

M ARCH 28, 1931

B IRMINGHAM, E NGLAND

The London, Midland and Scottish Railway train chugs through the countryside, and normally I’d revel in the views through the window. The transformation of the hills and fields from the drab bleakness of winter into the fresh green of spring is a sight that usually lifts my spirits. But not today. Today, the dual weights of work and May’s murder lie upon me, made heavier by the discovery of the newspaper article in May’s belongings yesterday.

I stare down at the Daily Herald piece, which I’ve read dozens of times now. Certain phrases leap from the page on each reading—“beautiful young violinist,” “student at Royal Academy of Music and regular performer at West End theaters, symphonies, and cinemas,” “parents frantic,” and “police investigating rumored German beau.” This time, however, I focus on the article’s concluding sentence: “Leonora Denning was last seen at a gathering of theater musicians, actors, managers, and actresses at the West End haunt Café de Paris, and all present have been questioned, including noted conductor Bobby Russell, popular actor Jack Hulbert, and the son of self-made insurance titan Jimmy Williams.”

Why did May keep this article? Did she know Miss Denning or someone else mentioned in the article? Had May met one or some of these people when she went to see Cavalcade ? The actor or the conductor? I can’t imagine that May’s paths would cross with an insurance man. Or did May have a sense that something terrible, something similar, was about to happen to her? Is May’s murder one in a series of killings of young women? What is the link between this missing young woman and May? Perhaps today’s interview will shed some light.

I tuck the article back into my notebook and return to the pages of Have His Carcase spread before me. Crafting the plot of this book seems trivial compared to the unpuzzling of May’s mystery, and I’m finding it hard to focus. Can I ask for another extension of my deadline? I doubt my editor will acquiesce. He’s already agreed to four more weeks, but that’s nowhere near enough time for me to bring together these unconnected scenes and clues and cardboard characters.

Have His Carcase opens with Harriet Vane tromping across southwest England during a period of introspection and celebration after being declared innocent, with the help of Wimsey, in the death of her suitor. She discovers a body while trekking across a beach, naturally, and then she and Wimsey spend the rest of the novel in a seaside town investigating alibis, motives, and means of death, enjoying each other and the sleuthing.

Could I weave into Have His Carcase something of my experience digging into May’s death—the emotions that have surged through me? Might that add some meaning and push the story along? I could access my own feelings about seeing the site where May had been found to describe Harriet’s reaction to stumbling across the body on the beach. Perhaps the sorrow I felt following in May’s footsteps on her last day and poring over her belongings could enrich it. I could also weave in the damaging role that the press plays in its depiction of women. Writers are often advised to write what they know, and no one could accuse me of doing otherwise.

A sign in the distance for Stratford-upon-Avon catches my attention, and I’m reminded of a lovely childhood holiday there with family. Our parents in tow, Ivy and I had strolled along the river resplendent with swans and watched a riveting production of Hamlet . Certainly the play sparked my short-lived youthful desire for the stage, but I believe it sowed the seeds for my mysteries as well. After all, who is Hamlet other than a character on a mad quest to solve the murder of his father? No doubt scholars would argue that the play is about much, much more, but to my young ears and eyes, that was the main thread.

The train passes expanses of fields, flat and rolling, dotted with stone cottages, until the landscape slowly becomes less bucolic and more urban. My destination approaches, and even though I have some minutes before we pull into the station, I tuck my notepads and writing instruments into my bag. I’d be kidding myself if I thought I had concentration enough to write in the final stretch of this 120-mile journey. My focus is on the next stage of the investigation—a close look at the days leading up to May’s disappearance.

And this, of course, requires that we talk to Celia.

A whistle signals our arrival into Birmingham New Street station. I’m up and ready to disembark before the train comes to a full stop. Steam from the arriving train billows into the high arched iron-and-glass roof, once the tallest of its kind. It is so thick I can barely see as I walk down the steps from the train car onto the platform proper. On the landing, I crash into another passenger. Or so I think.

“Dorothy,” Agatha calls out. “Delighted to bump into you!”

I can’t help but laugh at Agatha’s little joke. They are uncommon, after all, and must be encouraged.

Agatha had volunteered to help me question Celia and in fact had taken over the task of trying to reach the young woman. Although Celia had given several statements to the authorities at the time of May’s disappearance, she has been infamously unwilling to travel to France to answer more questions, and there does not seem to be a legal means of compelling her to do so. I don’t blame the poor girl; after all, the press seems determined to paint an unflattering portrait of May’s visit, and Celia is getting wrapped up in the tawdry allegations of drug use and loose behavior. But how on earth has Agatha managed to secure what the professionals could not?

I wrap my friend in a warm hug, prompting a chuckle from Agatha. “I don’t usually get such fanfare. To what do I owe the pleasure?”

“You have not only thrown us a lifeline in this investigation, you’re also saving me from my writing. A deadline looms,” I admit.

“Ah, the dreaded deadline. I have one of my own hovering about rather ominously.”

“ Peril at End House ?” I ask about Agatha’s latest, which sounds to me like perhaps her most ingenious plot yet.

“Yes. How I wish I was on an actual holiday in Cornwall rather than writing a mystery about one,” Agatha laments.

“I know the feeling. Harriet Vane and Peter Wimsey are solving a murder that takes place on a beach.”

Agatha clucks sympathetically. “Wishful thinking. I suppose we will have to make do with Birmingham for today.”

“At least we could coordinate our train travel.” Since I came from London, and Agatha had been visiting her sister and brother-in-law at their home, Abney Hall, near Manchester, we had timed it carefully.

“I was ready to escape the overbearing clutches of my sister, so it was you who rescued me, ” Agatha proclaims. “Since my mother died—many years ago, mind—Madge has taken upon herself to assume the maternal role. Although she’s more tyrannical and overbearing than my mother ever was. And never mind that I’m a mother myself.”

Considering this rare mention of her daughter, Rosalind, I follow Agatha up the platform to the station itself, which is attached to the Italianate Queens and North Western Hotel. Catching my breath after two flights of stairs, I ask, “How did you persuade Celia to meet with us? Miss McCarthy, I mean. Got to get used to calling her that again.”

A sly smile appears on her lips, and a shadow of the Agatha of old flickers across her face. The one who strode into rooms, a brightly colored scarf trailing behind her. The one who gave witty speeches at book launches. The one I encountered only fleetingly and whom the other Queens of Crime have never met.

She glances over at me from under the lowered brim of her tired gray hat. “Who said I did?”

I stop walking. “What are you on about, Agatha? Did we travel all the way to Birmingham without an appointment?”

She links her arm with mine. “Oh, we will meet Miss McCarthy, of that you can be certain. It will not be happening by appointment, however.”

“How, then?” I stand stock-still, refusing to be placated by her pleasant reassurances or the united arms of friendship.

“Well,” she says, her grin softening but her grip remaining, “I happen to know her nursing schedule.”

“And?” I ask, still not moving. I don’t understand what that has to do with meeting Celia. Are we going to feign injury so we can be treated at the Birmingham General Hospital, to which she recently transferred? I hope she’s found anonymity in Birmingham, at the very least.

“And I believe that our path might just coincide with Miss McCarthy’s. As she is leaving her shift and heading toward the hospital housing, we will ‘bump’ into her. Not unlike the way you just bumped into me.”

This is less by the book, so to speak, than I’d like. “You’re certain this will work?” I meet her gray-blue gaze.

Those eyes—usually soft and prone to evasion—have turned steely. “Certain.”

“All righty, then,” I say. “Let’s go.”

I take her arm, and we wind our way through the Birmingham streets, every bit as bustling as those in London. But the dark plumes of smoke billowing from the factories in the distance make it distinctive. It’s hard to tell if the sky is leaden because it’s another gloomy day or if the factory smoke is coloring it gray. I don’t know the city well, but Agatha seems to know every twist and turn. Has she studied maps before we arrived?

Within twenty minutes or so, we reach the hospital. Agatha disentangles her arm from mine and begins to study the doorways in and out of the institution. When we finally reach one toward the back of the hospital, she stops her searching. And we wait.

Bells peal, and a gaggle of young women streams out the door. Nurses all, by the look of their uniforms. How will we ever tease out Celia from the throng?

Agatha seems to have no difficulty doing so. I watch as she homes in on a slender nurse with a dark-blond bun at the base of her neck. As the group thins, we keep pace with that same young woman. From the smoothness and ease of Agatha’s stride, I can only surmise that she’s undertaken this exercise before. For a moment, she resembles one of her new characters, an unassuming but secretly crafty detective named Miss Marple.

By the time we are three blocks from the hospital, the nurse walks alone. Our pace increases until we are just behind her. Once we reach the storefront for Lyons Tea Shop, Agatha darts forward, colliding with the young woman so hard that the nurse falls to the ground.

“Oh my, oh my,” Agatha cries out, reaching out a hand to help pull her up. “I’m ever so sorry. Are you quite all right, dear?”

Celia—for it is indeed May’s friend, the resemblance to the photograph is strong—accepts the outstretched hand. She stands and brushes off her uniform. “I’m fine,” she says.

“Please forgive a clumsy older woman,” Agatha dithers. Now she’s a feeble, nonthreatening, much older lady.

“Really, it’s no trouble,” Celia repeats. “I’m fine.”

“Would you allow my friend and me”—here Agatha gestures to me and then to the Lyons Tea Shop—“to buy you a cup of tea? It’s the least I can do.”

“Thank you for the offer, but I have an appointment.” She gives us an indulgent half smile—throwing a bone to two women nearing their dotage. But underneath the gesture, I see her exhaustion and hesitation. Her eyes are dark with shadowy hollows, and her skin is wan. The newspaper coverage and the loss of her friend are taking a toll.

Agatha hesitates for a second so brief that I nearly miss it. That pause serves as the only evidence that this isn’t going exactly according to plan. “I really think you should, Miss McCarthy,” she insists, standing up straight. All evidence of the doddering older woman is gone.

The girl’s eyes widen, and her mouth opens—in protest, shock, rage, or some combination thereof. I don’t know. I can only imagine that she’d like to know who the hell we are.

But before Celia can speak, Agatha announces, “You see, I know something of your situation, having been under the unfortunate scrutiny of the press and the police. I am Mrs. Agatha Christie.”